Memeorandum

February 16, 2019

Amazon's Now Abandoned Special Deal Not So Special

Amidst the rhetoric around the abandoned Amazon deal do let me note this - most of the incentives and tax breaks Amazon was offered are available to any qualifying company that moves to New York and/or creates jobs there. These were 80's era tax incentive programs intended to boost New York city and state. Do they make sense today? Probably not for the greatest city in the word, although upstate has needed help since the railroads eclipsed the Erie Canal.

New York promised Amazon $1.525 billion in incentives, including $1.2 billion over the next 10 years as part of the state’s Excelsior tax credit. The state also pledged to help Amazon with infrastructure upgrades, job-training programs and even assistance “securing access to a helipad” — none of which came with a price tag.

...

New York City did not offer any special tax breaks to Amazon as part of the deal. But the company will be able to take advantage of existing city tax credits, including a program designed to encourage companies to create jobs outside the busiest parts of Manhattan. The program, open to all companies, could be worth as much as $900 million to Amazon over 12 years, on top of the state incentives.

The "by-right" nature of these open-to-all programs has never been a mystery. Yet coverage includes some howlers. Megan McArdle linked to this blast from the past by Josh Barro, who really ought to know better:

Here’s Why New York Is Resorting to Paying Amazon $3 Billion for What Google Will Do for Free

I'll bet Google applied for the benefit under those programs but didn't encourage politicians to take a victory lap talking up tax breaks for Google. Discretion is the better part of tax avoidance.

You know, I think it’s really important that we understand that we need to invest in our economy, but we need to invest in our people, and to give away $3 billion to a company that has a history of worker exploitation that’s paying below what the cost of New York City is not acceptable for us. We need to have good jobs, and they need to come to the table as in — you know, any company that wants to come to New York needs to come to the table as an equal partner, and you look at how Google came to New York; it was not nearly as controversial as this, and I think it’s because of, they were willing to work with local communities.”

“What’s great is that our economy, our local economy, is already growing. So I firmly believe that if we want to take that $3 billion dollars that we were willing to give to Amazon and invest it in our local community, we can do that. We can make those jobs. We can make 25,000 jobs.”

If and when those 25,000 jobs are created in Long Island City I bet the employers will be filing for the available tax breaks. Quietly. That's just my wild guess. But don't tell AOC and she'll never know. Very clever of Google to keep it on the dl - its an expedient modus operandi, although people do get upset when they learn the truth.

BONUS BAFFLER: Here is a Times piece on the Amazon subsidies. The author may be aware that these are public programs but it is well concealed. Her sinister close:

[Nathan Jensen, a professor at the University of Texas at Austin who studies incentive packages] suspects that some people will learn the opposite lesson — that New York should have just given Amazon what it wanted. A better takeaway, he said, is that huge subsidies aren’t necessary. And politicians should beware the consequences of negotiating them in private.

Don't negotiate in private or apply programs on the books for thirty years. Got it.

NOT SO HARD: The Sunday Times will include a piece on Amazon by Amy Liu. Explaining the subsidies is not impossible!:

But the role of public officials in this controversy deserves more scrutiny. Too often, they agree to economic development deals that fail to protect the interests of their constituents and negotiate through a process that is closed door and top down. State and local officials continue to hand out goodies even though evidence suggests that such subsidies have little effect on jobs.

In New York, the governor and mayor structured an agreement with Amazon using policy tools already established in the law. Amazon received “as-of-right” incentives, which are given automatically when a company wants to expand or relocate its facilities. New York’s as-of-right incentives, which are available to any company in a priority industry for the state that goes to a borough outside Manhattan, have been widely criticized as flawed and outdated. The amount of incentives offered ballooned to billions of dollars because of the proposed job count. Additionally, the city and state agreed that Amazon would not need to go through a local land-use review process, prompting the City Council to cry foul. Soon, a vocal minority of elected officials, labor leaders, and community activists revolted against the deal.

Sen. Lindsey Graham suggested he would subpoena former Acting FBI Director Andrew McCade and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein if necessary in order to get to the bottom of purported discussions at the Justice Department about invoking the 25th Amendment to try to remove President Trump from office.

“How can I not, if that’s what it takes?” Mr. Graham, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said in an interview that aired Sunday on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”

“We’re going to find out what happened here and the only way I know to find out is to call the people in under oath and find out, through questioning, who’s telling the truth because the underlying accusation is beyond stunning,” said Mr. Graham, South Carolina Republican.

I happily await the testimony of Rosenstein and McCabe wrt their discussion of Article 25.
Then and only then will we get the truth about this exchange which has been discussed here at JOM for over a year.
I will go on the record as being wrong about Rosenstein if it plays out that way.
If he says he was just kidding around, that still counts as irresponsible behavior.
Rosenstein will leave any day now right?
I bet he has to be subpoenaed to testify.

henry-when the common core was pushed to force all 50 states and recalcitrant states into the same vision of ed tied to CEDS, two states were charged with creating the comprable vision for higher ed. Texas was one and Va was the other.

Bruno Ganz, the talented Swiss actor who portrayed Hitler in “Downfall” and countless video parodies, has died at the age of 77. I had retired from doing “Hitler Learns About. . .” parodies, but by popular demand, here’s one final one from Power Line Productions—the parody to end them all I hope:

Did 4D Trump move Kelly from Homeland Security to Chief of Staff to strip his 25th Amendment powers?

4D Trump knows it’s not a wise idea to believe anything said by FBI lawyer Baker who was a conspirator in the coup attempt.

If it turns out to be true, I imagine it was someone who was fired early in the administration like McMaster or Priebus. In that scenario someone had to inform Trump of their treachery. Most likely candidate is Rosenstein.

Maryrose, see, that is the key to their survival. The head honchos don't seem willing to turn on each other...again because nobody has reinstated a common Law & Order for All standard yet, so there is little to gain by flipping. And of course we don't think Mueller and the other black hats in power at the DoJ and Congress want them to either so why should they tell anything but the party line?

Why would Rosie be the informant when he himself uttered the infamous wearing a wire comment?
To divert attention from his possibly said in jest comment which Strzok, Page and McCabe took as a for real possibility?
What about that damn FISA warrant?
I am not letting that be crushed with a pillow.
Question from Senator:
Why in God’s name Rosie ,did you sign off on the 4th FISA warrant?
Did you read it or just have one of your flunkies rubber stamp it.
What did you and President Trump discuss on Air ForceOne?
Why did you refuse to testify before House committees when Repubs held the chamber?
Why did you write the memo to fire Comey?
Why Mueller?

D, I think we are learning that these warrants are rubber stamped all the way thru the line (including the FISC). The power lies in the hands of the droogs who write them up and are supposed to flag any problematic issues(like no evidence and this is crap from oppo sources) and certainly did not.It's an assembly line .

OL:
I am not willing to let this be swept under the rug like Benghazi,
Uranium One and the Clinton Foundation.
Who is getting paid to slow walk the indictment of McCabe.
For almost s year some hack is investigating him in the DOJ.
Where are the conclusions and the report.
This is what happens when everything is delayed.
McCabe thinks he was cheated out of his pension, so he writes a book and gets to spin the treason he committed as he was just s concerned citizen.
Some will buy this loopy explanation and then he gets to play the victim.
I want these guys buried.
My guess on the two people who would go along with Article 25 , Sessions and Tillerson.

Tru dat, Clarice, all the while selling the public on the safety of all those Patriot Act intrusions by claiming "look at all the honorable big names who have to review and approve stuff at every stage..."

That is the importance of our discussion yesterday about Corzine. Many of the "crimes" we complain about here are about "power" and for those who "hate politics", their eyes glaze over.

Corzine proved that the same no-fault zone in effect for top level Dems also includes breaking rules to gain a big big amount of money. Clintons and Obamas followed Corzine all the way to the offshore banks.

Clarice:
I remember after 9/11 when they wanted to increase spying abilities on foreign countries that hate us the Dems wanted to tighten up the FISA process.
You couldn’t just get one Willy milky.
Now it seems no care is given and no justification is necessary and flunkies handle everything.
Did Obama or his minions like Yates , Power and Brennan and Clapper just have free rein here unchecked by anyone?
What an abuse of the system!
Where are Roberts and the judges on this abuse of power?

OL:
Citizen was the poster boy for stealing assets of investors.
He also bought his New Jersey Senate seat.
Don’t the voters of New Jersey ever get tired of having liars and cheats in public office.
Shades of Boss Tweed.
Menendez gets re-elected?
Where is the Repub party here and in New York? To say nothing of California.
How was this neutering of the Repubs allowed to happen?
We used to be strong enough to take down a sitting Governor, Gray Davis and to drive out a sleazy congressman, Gary Condit.
Now we are totally hobbled in those states.

@secupp
The giddiness among Trumpsters over the Smollett news is gross. This story is awful. He allegedly abused police resources, exploited raw divisions in this country, and made it harder for every victim of a hate crime to report. This is sad no matter your politics.

Moyer made sure Clinton got off scot free.
Call her in also.
Don’t we interview the little people to turn them and then tag the big players?
Or does everybody just get a pass because they were following orders?

So sad to see the notice of the death of W.E.B. Griffin. At one time I had every book he had written. I don't have most of the ones he wrote with his son. To me they don't have near the punch the ones he wrote by himself.

I think I have noted before here that I got the chance to meet Bill Burroughs (WEB Griffin) at a Fourth of July Party at the US Ambassador residence in Buenos Aires back in 1995. Love Cigars, whiskey, and wine. Had a small Ranchero up toward Rosario.

The commercial attache aka CIA, was his friend and a source for much of the fiction (ex-nonfiction) in his books.

Not to sound ridiculously redundant, but I got to know SE Cupp pretty well. We got to know each other on a cruise where we sat next to each other at dinner and found out we grew up a block from each other.

After that we spent quite a bit of time with each other. I was her safety net because she was a "celebrity".

Nothing we discussed that week would have allowed me to see these changes in her going forward. It's as if she was just saying what she wanted the audience to hear and continues with that plan.

It makes me mad. She gave me her personal phone #. I should find it and call her up and yell at her.

Lurkersusie:
Pay off cops to alert ICE Dems be damned!
They don’t care about protecting American citizens so they don’t get a say majority or not.
Impeach or recall governors of states who continue to protect and promote illegals Tell Newsome , we are coming for him just like we disposed of Gray Davis.
Put the fear of God into them.

While Baker did not identify the two Cabinet officials, he says that McCabe and former FBI lawyer Lisa Page approached him to relay their conversations with Rosenstein, including their discussions of the 25th Amendment scheme.

"I was being told by some combination of Andy McCabe and Lisa Page, that, in a conversation with the Deputy Attorney General, he had stated that he -- this was what was related to me -- that he had at least two members of the president’s Cabinet who were ready to support, I guess you would call it, an action under the 25th Amendment," Baker told the Congressional committees.

henry--one of the things I did yesterday apart from walking and making a belated v day dinner was to read the first edition of the Handbook of Learner Analytics someone made a link available for.

No question data privacy is really about enabling LA to force a cybernetic org of society around goals and gap between what is desired and where we are. a/k/a evidence-based policymaking. The rhetoric in the handbook even dovetails with what the False ed narrative hypes trying to push GDPR as the purported solution to the common core.

“It appears that Jussie Smollett tried to manufacture a hate crime to make Trump supporters look bad and most of the media not only uncritically accepted his lies as facts for weeks, but attacked those who questioned the validity of his false story.” - @DonaldJTrumpJr

The call was brief and there was little explanation for the company’s reversal.

Just days before, I had counseled a senior Amazon executive about how they could win over some of their critics. Meet with organized labor. Start hiring public housing residents. Invest in infrastructure and other community needs.

I like how DiBlasio get to the point; first he tells us there was no explanation for Amazon's change of heart, and then immediately shows us how one explanation could be how he personally harangued some Amazon big shot.

rse, well that and opportunities for graft by each state AG using the CA privacy law as a benchmark. Pay Becerra or get crushed. Now going to all blue hell states. Can’t have a federal law while Trump is able to use those tools.

Happy Birthday, GUS! Seems you and your son almost share a birthday. I think sharing a birthday with a close family member is special as I was born on my paternal grandmother's birthday. We always celebrated together and those are great memories.

On Thursday, members of the Minnesota House voted to pass H.F. 1397, a bill which would give life insurance companies the right to deny payouts to beneficiaries whose loved one died while committing an act of terrorism.

In a bipartisan effort, Republicans and Democrats joined together to pass the bill 127-2. Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-Minneapolis) and John Lesch (D-St.Paul) were the only two lawmakers who voted against the measure.